


Hajime

by memoirs



Series: Hajime & Tooru [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Draws heavy inspiration from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Future Fic, M/M, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26751970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memoirs/pseuds/memoirs
Summary: "You're fascinated by Iwaizumi-san," Hinata invariably retorted. "After all these years, you just want to make a man that you've never met happy by recording everything you know about him."There was nothing I could say to that; he was absolutely right. The history I was preoccupied with writing was not my own. It's origins lay in a time before I was even born. And it's legacy would outlive my brief cameo role. But I couldn't help it. I was addicted to Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru – to Iwa-chan and Shittykawa. And I liked to think that I had more claim on their legacy than most.After all, I'm married to Iwaizumi-san’s husband.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: Hajime & Tooru [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948261
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Hajime

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I know I'm supposed to update the amnesia au but I just couldn't resist writing this iwaoi fic!! It's heavily inspired by the classic Rebecca, though I did add a few changes to it! Hope y'all will enjoy reading it.

"We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had before."

\- Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca.

When Iwaizumi Hajime was the master of this holiday house, he would often look out the window, announce suddenly that it was going to rain, and run out to trim the azaleas. Sometimes, Oikawa Tooru would join him, for no other reason than to watch Iwaizumi in his white gardening clothes as he sent worried glances to the sky. On the days when Takeru was with his friends, and the grey, rumbling sky threatened to burst at any moment, Oikawa would grab his husband's hands, throw the trimmers on the ground and kiss him until those first drops landed on their heads.

I can live it over and over again, although of course I wasn't there. Because Iwaizumi Hajime and I have never met.

It was always at this holiday house –– that I felt as if I could live their memories. Each corner was haunted by a past that I had never known. And it seemed that when I was here, I would once more pick up my holiday task where I left off: the careful chronicling of a past that belonged to another man.

Hinata would roll his eyes at me, while cutting up sandwiches for his children, who were climbing all over Kageyama. "You are utterly tireless in your crusade."

"It's not a crusade," I would say defensively. "I find the past interesting."

Hinata smiled at his lover, grabbing one of the toddlers from his lap and kissing him lightly on the head. "But it's not _your_ past."

"But it's all of _your_ pasts. And it fascinates me."

"You're fascinated by Iwaizumi-san," Hinata invariably retorted. "After all these years, you just want to make a man that you've never met happy by recording everything you know about him."

There was nothing I could say to that; he was absolutely right. The history I was preoccupied with writing was not my own. It's origins lay in a time before I was even born. And it's legacy would outlive my brief cameo role. But I couldn't help it. I was addicted to Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru – to Iwa-chan and Shittykawa. And I liked to think that I had more claim on their legacy than most.

After all, I'm married to Iwaizumi-san’s husband.

I find it difficult to recall exactly when I first heard their names. When I first moved to the city, it seemed like I only heard the words Oikawa and Iwaizumi uttered in whispers – in the lowered voice of gossip.

At that time, Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime were no more real to me than very beautiful models on the side of buildings. The few times I was involved in a direct conversation about either of them, I felt strange not whispering their names; the syllables had too much significance for me now. They had the shock of a curse and the reverence of a holy word.

Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime were in love. There was consensus on that at least.

Of course, that wasn't what the gossip was usually concerned with. People were more interested in the intrigue that surrounded the glamorous couple. Every time Oikawa stumbled during the early years of his position as Setter of the Argentinean National Team and later Captain, people would shake their heads and refer darkly to his High school days when he was a relatively unknown athlete.

"Imagine, trusting the fate of the Olympic medal to a flirty Japanese punk kid," Matias tsk-ed when I asked him about those early days.

Matias was a kind man who had taken me under his wing during my first months in San Juan. I had come from Brazil with impressive skills and little understanding of the outside world apart from volleyball, and was desperate to soak in as much information as I possibly could. Matias was a godsend when it came to sage advice about handling myself in this new place and Volleyball court. But we would soon lose contact; even in the early days of our friendship, he made me feel ignorant, and I unfairly resented him for it.

"He's hardly a punk kid, Matias," I protested, my head light from the rich red wine that was being liberally served with brunch. I had felt so out of place at the time. Matias must have laughed at my childish behaviour. But he was always kind to me. "Plus he’s already won us the medal at the 2021 Olympics and He's as old as you’re."

"Well, his Husband helps with the training and keeps him from getting into trouble," Matias admitted. "Always has, always will."

That was probably the beginning of my fascination with Iwaizumi Hajime. He seemed unbelievably handsome, extremely devoted and loyal to his alien loving Husband. I was probably only twenty-three years old, but I remember leafing through the _lifestyle magazines_ in a café and finding a picture of Oikawa and Iwaizumi in the social pages.

It was unfathomable that a newspaper-quality photograph could convey so much emotion. There was Oikawa in that showy suit with his signature bow tie, staring at Iwaizumi intensely, while Iwaizumi simply rested his hand on Oikawa’s chest and smiled at someone off camera.

His eyes do have a gift for intensity. They change with the light, even more marked now that his hair has partially turned grey. Then though, he was young and powerful with a Handsome husband and a wonderful family. That's the strange thing about photographs. They taunt us with moments that have passed. The instant we capture them on film they pass from our hands. This moment was particularly poignant. My breath caught as I looked at the smitten man, who was on the surface such a hardened son-of-a-bitch.

"Thirty-Five and his husband still looks at him in _that_ way," the waitress sighed as she glanced over my shoulder. "Lucky bastard."

Even then I was affronted by the obscenity in relation to someone who seemed to embody perfection.

It's embarrassing, really. It embarrasses me when I look back on the way I fiercely guarded my image of Iwaizumi. Since that time, I've spoken to anybody and everybody about him, only to find that Iwaizumi was anything but the wilting flower that I envisaged. It was pure fantasy, this notion that I could protect him from anything. When I look at that picture of Iwaizumi that hangs in the hallway, where he stands next to the Aoba Johsai Volleyball team, wearing a jersey over his teal and white uniform, I can almost see him roll his eyes at me. I still murmur an apology to him for my foolish naivety.

Thankfully, as the years passed, my interest in the famous couple was no more intense than my interest in the actors in gossip magazines. I could pick up the thread of their lives and put it back down with little thought. They were fodder for gossip, even in my much younger circle. But after a few years in the city, I felt like a local. And locals were never star struck.

The day Iwaizumi died, I was rushing to work, and caught only a glancing reference at a local news-stand. But just a part of the headline was enough to stop me in my tracks. "Iwaizumi Hajime: Athletic Trainer of Japanese National Team, Husband of Olympian OikawaTooru perishes - "

"You read it, you buy it," the man behind the counter commented in a bored tone.

My hands were shaking when I passed two bills over the counter. The flight had passed off radar en route home from California. Struck by lightning, I thought grimly. It seemed fitting somehow. Their nephew, Takeru, thanked everyone for their concern and requested that they respect the family's privacy.

Of course, no one respected the family's privacy in the slightest. It became a gruesome spectator-sport, watching Oikawa’s decline over the following months. There were constant fights on the volleyball court, bar brawls, there was public drunkenness, and even muttering on the Argentinian Volleyball Association that he should be removed from the team.

Then, there was a year of absolutely nothing. No news reports, no public sightings. It was a vacuum. To this day, I have no idea what happened in that time. Knowing Oikawa as I do, he probably threw himself to the wind in the hope that it would take him to Iwaizumi.

Exactly one year later, sadder and older, Oikawa Tooru walked into the Volleyball court and picked up where he left off. The media lost interest; it was Oikawa’s exuberance that made for an interesting copy, and after he returned from the mystery disappearance, there was no sign of it.

My husband has many admirable qualities. He is loyal to his family, he cares furiously for his sister and nephew. He has always been a courteous and generous husband. But, any trace of his former exuberance disappeared one morning en route from California. And since that day, his life has become a steady wind-down.

When I told my mother that I was marrying Oikawa Tooru, she shook her head at me. "It will never be enough, you know. It was the real thing between them. I mean you could sense it. He'll never love you like he loves Iwaizumi."

And she was right. But that was one thing that my mother would never understand. I didn't need the grand love story. I was happy to pick up the story in the middle. I think it was my inherent cheerfulness that drew Oikawa to me; there couldn't be anyone further from the Iwaizumi mould. Any attempt at a Iwaizumi counterfeit would have insulted his finely honed sensibilities.

It was lucky, really, that I didn't fit into the image that his family had of me. They expected a Volleyball idiot, I'm sure. But when they met me, they immediately saw that I tended more towards bookishness and mousiness than I did personal trainers and gold-digging.

"I was just relieved," Matsukawa smiled when I asked him what he thought of me when he first met me.

"You didn't expect me to be such a nerd?"

"Pretty much," he admitted. "I mean, don't get me wrong – Iwaizumi was a complete geek, loved Godzilla but…" he faltered at that. Emotions chased each other across his face.

"The two of you dated before Oikawa and Iwaizumi got together, didn't you?"

He swallowed. Although his grief expressed itself in a different way to Hanamaki, I could tell that Iwaizumi had left a large hole in his life. Combined with his inherent discomfort with expressing emotion, I knew that it was a big step for him to be willing to talk to me – of all people – about his ex-boyfriend _slash_ best friend. "We dated for a lot longer than we should have (like the entirety of first and second year), I think. But after he and Oikawa finally…I mean when they opened the flood-gates. Well, let's just say that those years with me don't even come close."

"They really had something special, didn't they?"

Matsukawa misunderstood me; he thought that I was jealous or upset by my observation. But really, I found it fascinating. The Oikawa I knew, the man I call my husband, seemed to have so little in common with the Oikawa they had known for almost three decades before he met me.

Our relationship began so haltingly, with coffees and the exchange of books, rather than grand shows of romance. It was easy for him to be around me, and soon enough he began to depend on my practicality. Then, one night he called me to ask for my help and to meet him at his house; I had been there a few times before, so I didn't read much into it.

When I arrived, I found him slumped on the couch with a glass of scotch in his hand. Although I didn't understand it at the time, the evening had been designed as a clumsy and half-hearted bid for my attention. Of course, he had been overcome with heart-wrenching guilt and grief and ordered me to turn around and leave his house immediately.

"I had never really dated," he explained later. "I was at a loss. And was feeling more than a little guilty about even thinking about it."

"Iwaizumi would have wanted you to be happy," I said.

"No, he'd want me to be miserable and never get over him," he muttered. "I'd want the same thing."

In those early days, it could have gone either way. We could have been no more than friends – meeting only when the Association threw lavish parties for the volleyball club members and staff. We would schedule lunches and continue those coffee dates, but I had long since given up on expecting any more than that. Until I found him in a dark corner of one of Blanco’s Christmas parties, with a look of inexpressible sadness on his face, undoubtedly thinking of Iwaizumi. My heart was filled with such tenderness that I had kissed him, surprised by the needy insistence of his response.

"Perhaps we should go back to your place," I whispered into his ear.

His immediate response had been to take a step back and to fix those dark eyes on me. It was the look Oikawa gave people when he was trying to discern a motive. "Why on earth would you think we should do that?"

He was probably expecting me to blush furiously and run away from his barbed comments. He had misjudged his audience. "Because you're about to come apart at the seams and I want to help you."

A pause and then the smallest nod.

Later, when I lay naked in his arms, achingly aware that his mind had drifted back to Iwaizumi, I turned my head to look at him. "You never will get over him," I said. "He wouldn't have wanted you to be miserable, though."

"I'm a real shit, you know," Oikawa responded after a while.

"Yeah?"

I felt him nod, although I wasn't looking at him. "Only a real shit would let someone as you jump aboard a sinking ship. And that's what I've been, since…he died."

"You can say his name, you know."

"Since Iwa-chan."

I've never quite been able to name the emotion that accompanied that statement. It was like the vertigo that comes with looking down from a great height. I knew from that night on that if I stayed by his side, I would never know love like that. There was, quite simply, not enough room in that damaged heart for anyone other than his nephew and sister, his friends, and most all that enigmatic man who pervaded every space of this house.

"Tell me about Iwaizumi," I whispered.

We spoke of him often; I insisted upon it. But sometimes, he would be on the verge of telling me some story and would suddenly stop. To talk about Iwaizumi was a type of release for him, and I listened with a patient ear. But, some stories were too precious. They stayed in the secret space of his mind where Iwaizumi lived.

It was always a thrill to say Iwaizumi’s name; it was never forbidden in our house. In fact, we spoke of him often. In those early, resentful days with his nephew, I had asked him to talk about Iwaizumi freely. Soon enough we were laughing about his recollections of his Uncles’ embarrassing public displays of affection, their passionate fights, and the way they seemed to move in sync when they prepared for glamorous dinners. Takeru remembered hiding in Oikawa's closet, watching the way Oikawa would spritz perfume into the air and walk through it. Invariably, Iwaizumi would wrap his arms around his middle and kiss his neck, while Takeru blushed in embarrassment in the closet.

"I love you so fucking much," he said huskily.

"I love you so fucking much, too, Hajime."

At that point, Takeru had gasped so loudly that his uncle had discovered him. When the door opened, Oikawa found him nestled in one of Iwaizumi’s jerseys.

"You _swore_ ," he breathed. "Uncle Hajime, too."

"Oikawa Takeru, were you snooping?"

"I think he was," Iwaizumi said conspiratorially, scooping him up and placing him gently on the bed. "I wonder where he inherited that charming genetic trait?"

"I have no idea," Oikawa deadpanned, before turning his attention onto his nephew. "You remember what we do to snoops, don't you?"

"Do we tickle them?" Iwaizumi drawled.

And with that, his uncles had tickled him mercilessly.

These little anecdotes were easy to share. There would be laughter and tears whenever one of Aoba Johsai members would start a sentence with "Remember the time when Iwaizumi-san…". But it was harder to draw out those stories about his death. When Iwaizumi had died, the entire landscape of their lives had changed. And most irrevocably of all, Oikawa had changed.

"It's a kind of BD, AD situation, to be honest," Yahaba said, frank as always. "Before Iwaizumi-san Died, After Iwaizumi-san Died. He was one person before and afterwards…well, he's been haunted by a ghost."

When I asked Blanco what it was like when Oikawa heard the news, his face paled and he shook his head. No one who had been there at the time seemed willing to talk about it. Hanamaki had been slower than most to accept my presence in all of their lives.

It was the night we announced our engagement, when Hanamaki stormed from the room, with Oikawa in pursuit. I caught only the tail end of their conversation in furious whispers in the kitchen.

"What am I supposed to do with a _boyfriend_ , Makki?"

"So you decide that making him your _husband_ is the answer? What about Iwa, Oikawa? Have you forgotten about the vows you made to him?"

"Don't talk about what you don't understand," he hissed. "You have no idea what it feels like. All of you. You don't know how it feels. It's like someone ripped my fucking heart out and I have to walk around every day…"

"Tooru," he said, incredibly gently.

I am almost certain that my proud and private husband shed tears in that kitchen. "It's too much. It's just too much. Why would he make me fucking love him like that if he wasn't going to stay with me?"

I felt like a voyeur in the dark hallway, listening to this private exchange. I would have loved to see his face; I had never heard his voice touched with so much emotion. I heard a faint rustle, which told me that Hanamaki had taken Oikawa in his arms. "I miss him so much, Tooru. It doesn't get any easier, does it?"

"It gets easier to pretend to be okay," he whispered. "Which is why it also gets worse."

Makki was now only adopting the pose of disapproval. "Does _he_ make you happy?"

"He makes it easier to pretend to be happy," Oikawa said simply, and I took some solace in that.

"Then I guess I should help him pick a suit," Hanamaki said, the fight gone from his voice.

And slowly, over time, Hanamaki had come to accept my presence, although he never made the overtures of friendship that he did to Watari’s wife. Nor did he ever speak to me about Iwaizumi, apart from the most superficial, factual statements he could manage. "That was while we were engaged in an arm wrestling competition," he'd say. Or "Oikawa’s parents died before Takeru was born." And he certainly never spoke about the day when Iwaizumi’s plane crashed.

It was Hinata who often took pity on me, petting my hand comfortingly. "You have to understand. It's a painful time for us to remember."

I was close to begging. "I just want to understand what it was like."

Hinata bit his lip; he was easy to manipulate. "Oikawa-san refused to believe it. I think that his body simply couldn't accommodate that kind of loss. He became mono-maniacally obsessed with the thought that he had survived."

Hinata sighed, lost in a time before I had known any of them. My eyes travelled to the pictures that sat in pride of place on the mantelpiece. There was Takeru and Natsu on their wedding day. There was Shoyou and Kagaeyama with their tiny son. And there was Oikawa and Iwaizumi on Christmas Day. There was a small twinge, as always, when I saw that the picture from my wedding day was in the less coveted spot; I understood, but it still hurt me.

"It took months to find his body. Months of Oikawa lost and furious, refusing to accept that Iwaizumi was really gone. And then, one day, we received a phone call. And all I can remember is Oikawa-san hanging up the phone. We were all there – Takeru, Iwaizumi-san’s mother, everyone – and I remember that Iwaizumi-san’s mother poked her head out of the kitchen and just stared at him. He didn't say anything, but we all knew that the retrieval team had finally proven to him what we all knew to be true. It was over."

"What did he say?"

Perhaps it was perverse to seek out more information about the day my husband found out that the love of his life was dead, but I couldn't resist. Hinata couldn't understand my preoccupation with the love of my husband's life. And he didn't trust it. But, he never begrudges me the stories.

"Nothing," he said after a brief pause. "I think Takeru asked him what they had said. He was here visiting home at that point. I think he said, 'Uncle, are you okay?' or something like that. And Oikawa-san started pacing. And then his whole body seemed to crumple, as if something was pressing down on it. He just crouched there – right there, next to where you're sitting – and clenched his fists against his forehead and let out this _scream_. I've never heard anything like it. And until the day that I die, I doubt I will ever hear the sound again."

The afternoon was spoilt after that. And there was nothing left to say.

"You won't tell Tooru that I asked?"

"Of course."

Each year, on the day Iwaizumi fell from the sky, Oikawa will disappear. In some morbid way, I think he takes his late husband out for a date. The entire week, he will be cruel to those around him, he will snap at me. And then comes the day of disappearance. Then, in the morning, he will be sitting at the kitchen table with a copy of the crossword already open at my place.

I take these small kindnesses and collect them in my hand. I feel like one day, when I pass from life to death, Iwaizumi will seek me out and I will be able to hand over all those years that he missed. And he will interrupt his indignant rant about Oikawa and take a moment to thank me for taking care of Oikawa during those twilight years when he couldn't reach him.

The house I live in is a type of mausoleum. Every surface of it has been touched by Iwaizumi Hajime, and I keep it that way for Oikawa's sake. Whenever I move anything in the slightest, he gets that pained look in his eyes and glances at his wedding band. He still wears the one that Iwaizumi slipped on his finger.

"I'm not trying to replace Iwaizumi," I explained, when I informed him that he would not be needing a wedding band.

"I'm a shit for letting you do this," he said, shaking his head.

"You're not so bad," I grinned.

He smiled back. That was my reward.

I was not made for the great romance. I love my husband, and each day we take a step closer to old age, comfortable in our affection for each other and in the close proximity of his nephew and friends.

He was wrong when he called himself a shit for doing this to me. He never once lied about what I was to him. We were to be companions – I was to make it easier for him to pretend to be happy.

I don't let it bother me as I scribble furiously in the room overlooking the garden, with the ghost of Iwaizumi leaning over my shoulder and criticising my story of his life. Soon enough his spectre will look out the window, decide that it is going to rain soon, and hurry outside to join Oikawa as he trims the azaleas.

It is my fate to be a place-holder. Because even though he is kind to me often and gentle with me always, Oikawa is merely biding his time until the promised day when he can shrug off this life and ascend like a butterfly to take his rightful place by Iwaizumi’s side. Despite life's many, little pleasures, he knows that his happiness lies on the other side of the veil. It calls to him in Iwaizumi’s voice, and today he is out in the garden, trimming the azaleas and remembering each moment of his time with him.

One day, his decade-long wait will be over. And when that day comes, I will release my light hold on him and smile when they finally wrap their ghostly arms around each other.

*

_**Mrs. Danvers** : You tried to take her place. You let him marry you. I've seen his face, his eyes. They're the same as those first weeks after she died. I used to listen to him, walking up and down, up and down, all night long, night after night, thinking of her. Suffering torture because he lost her._

_**2nd Mrs. de Winter** : I don't want to know. I don't want to know._

_**Mrs. Danvers** : You thought you could be Mrs. de Winter, live in her house, walk in her steps, take the things that were hers. But she's too strong for you. You can't fight her. No one ever got the better of her. Never. Never. She was beaten in the end, but it wasn't a man. It wasn't a woman. It was the sea._

Daphne Du Maurier's _Rebecca._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Kudos and comments are appreciated <3  
> 


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